Sandy's Circus--Back By Popular Demand

                                                          "Circus Pony and Her Trainer"

Alexander Calder's Miniature Circus is well loved by my students and a favorite with my fifth graders who remembered when we did it way back when.   I had a special request by one of my students to bring it back this year.  Great idea!  This lesson provided a fun break from the intensity of portrait drawing and also a wonderful way to deplete, or at least make a dent in, the ever-growing "scrap box"...the place where bits and pieces and all the left-overs go all year long.

Students began by revisiting "Cirque de Calder" ".  We brainstormed a huge list of  circus acts together as a group and talked about the wonder of creating miniature worlds. We looked at pictures of various circus posters and acts.   Kids chose three of their favorite circus acts to sketch  in their sketchbooks paying special attention to costuming and props.  Kids chose their best ideas and began building their acts.  Some work is still in progress, but these were finished today.

"Anna's Trapeze"  The slightest breeze sets the little figure swinging.

"Tight Rope Walker"  about to step onto the wire.  Love her bathing suit.

                                   
   "Giraffe Rides!"  What fun!  This  giraffe has a long ribbon neck.  This artist included movement in her sculpture by attaching the head to a string so the toy could be interactive.

                                              "Bear Act"  a dancing bear with it's trainer.

"Fire Dancers and Jugglers" in a fancy beaded ring.

The Amazing Dale Wayne

Sixth Graders were inspired by the work of instillation artist Dale Wayne to create a little bit of  community artwork of our very own.

We looked at Dale's work on her website, watched a few video clips, collected bottles then broke out the paint and the glitter.  We painted our bottles with tempera paints mixed with a bit of acrylic gel medium.  While the bottles were still wet we dragged them through glitter and set them aside to dry.

In the next class we cut the bottles into flower shapes, poked a hole into the caps and created extravagant centers for our blooms from sparkle pipe cleaners, straws, and other do-dads from the scrap box.  The bottles can also be doubled up for a fuller flower.  We continued paint, glitter, and working on blooms for three classes and each week added to the mass of flowers on the corner of the bulletin board.
 

Lots of glitzy fun!  But not for the faint of heart.  Make sure to have the broom and the dust pan ready because the glitter was really flying with this one.

We used the cheap dollar store "glitter".  It's big.  It's shiny.  It's all over the place.

To learn more about this artist check out the video.  I can't wait for Christmas...check out her amazing water bottle Christmas Trees at Inspiration Green

Trouble in Blog Land

Big milestone.  I reached my free photo storage limit on Picassa.  I knew I was getting close to the limit, but like Scarlet O'Hara decided I'd think about that tomorrow.  Well, tomorrow came yesterday when blogger refused to allow me to post any more photos.  I don't really want to purchase web storage even if it's really inexpensive because I'm cheap and would rather spend my money on other stuff.  

I figured out that images that are sized 800 pixels and smaller don't count against the limit.  So today I'm going to try uploading smaller images.  Not too excited  loosing all those pixels.  So sad.  I guess it will have to do for the time being until I figure something else out.

Has this happened to anyone else?  What did you do to solve the problem?

Here's our contribution to the 2012 art show.  Enjoy!  

Behind the Scenes

Three months of planning, four days of shooting, 6,000 Post-it Notes.

Rainbow Papers and a Musical Question

Today kindergarten used cake temperas to made these rainbow papers.  We're saving these papers for a special project that we'll start next week.  Kids referenced the color wheel to get the colors in the correct order and really enjoyed making their beautiful papers.  After clean-up,  some students continued to "rainbow" with crayons and on their free draw papers.  Then we gathered on the rug to watch "I See a Song", the Eric Carle Video.

One little girl looked and asked "Is that Tchaikovsky?"

Me:  "How do you know about Tchaikovsky?"

Her:  "Swan Lake"

I checked the credits, but the music is not listed.  Does anyone know what piece this is?  Has anyone else noticed that kindergartners are way smarter than they used to be?  

Log Trucks in Vermont

Butterflies and flowers are not for this group...second grade...all boys except for one lone girl.  Vehicles was our theme but the overwhelming vehicle of choice was the iconic "log truck".  They're a common sight in our town and fascinating to these young men.  Open sides, stacked logs, ladder and best of all...the log grabber are all shown in this print.  A real piece of "kid culture".

Here's our set-up.

Happy Earth Day

Our seed head sculptures sprouted just in time to take them home before spring break.  You can see the complete how-to here.